A Different World Paid Tribute to Darryl Tribble

Who was Darryl Tribble?

The season 4 episode 23 of A Different World, titled If I Should Die Before I Wake, first aired in February 1989. It featured Josie Webb (Tisha Campbell), who just revealed that she is HIV positive. When the show ends, a tribute is shown on screen that says "In Memory of Darryl Tribble."

When I initially viewed this episode, I assumed based on the subject matter that perhaps Tribble had died from AIDS and that he worked off-camera on ADW. I have been enjoying the sticom on different Internet platforms for the past few years, but did not focus on Tribble's name until recently.

I saw If I Should Die Before I Wake on Netflix a few days ago, and when the Tribute appeared, I wondered what association Tribble had with the show. I found that two years before this episode aired he appeared in his one and only episode of the sitcom.

Tribble appeared in season two

Tribble was in the Season 2 episode 14 of the NBC sitcom Breaking Up is Hard to Do. which aired in April 1991. The main storyline revolves around Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) and Suzanne Taylor (Tracy Hairston), the daughter of Colonel Bradford Taylor (Glenn Turman).

The couple had only been dating a few months when they decide to go their separate ways on Valentine's Day. Also in this episode, Jaleesa Vinson (Dawnn Lewis) d had been getting phone calls from people who believed they were calling a bank to get a free toaster.

She tells one caller (using her fake accent ) that they have reached the Kingston, Jamaica, branch of the bank. These were the days before cell phones, when calling long distance out of the country on a land line was expensive.

The Little Acorns

Freddie Brooks (Cree Summer) tells Jaleesa that her Jamaican accent can fool anybody, so she pranks Walter Oakes (Sinbad). She calls him on the phone, and disguises her voice as "Shiela," a Jamaican woman who wants a date with the men's dorm director.

Walter allows Jaleesa to believe he would go on a date with the Jamaican female. Later, Walter shows up at Jaleesa's apartment, and she confronts him by revealing that she was the voice on the phone. He told her he knew all along that she was Sheila and opens her door.

Walter announces that Walter Oaks amd the Little Acorns are going to sing "I knew it all along." He walks out, and three men dressed like they are on vacation come in playing instruments. Walter returns behind them wearing a dreadlocked wig. Matthew Dickenson, Rory Hix, and Darryl Tribble are listed as the Little Acorns.

Darryl Tribble died from AIDS

Sadly, according to a Facebook post, the actor died from AIDS in 1990 at age 30. NBC allegedly did not want the popular sitcom to honor him, but Debbie Allen, who also worked with Darryl when he was a dancer on the television series Fame, insisted on the tribute, and she got her way.

In the ADW episode If I Should Die before I Wake, Whoopi Goldberg portrayed a professor who stated, "AIDS is not a moral judgment." In those early days of learning about the disease, it was considered by some to be a gay man's illness, and the stigma might be why NBC did not want to honor the actor.

Darryl Tribble also appeared in Head of the Class, Apple Pie, and Dancing in the Wings. As long as this A Different World episode continues to be available without being edited, the tribute will be viewed, and the actor/dancer will be remembered.